1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stereomicroscope, and more specifically to a stereomicroscope provided with a camera for assistant which is detachably mounted to the stereomicroscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stereomicroscope for use in a cranial nerve surgery or the like introduces beams reflected on a surgical portion into beam introduction holes provided at a lower portion of a microscope main body. The introduced beams are guided to right and left eyes of a main operator through an objective optical system, a zoom optical system and an eyepiece optical system. This allows the main operator to observe a zoomed surgical portion by his/her naked eyes.
The main operator generally performs a surgical operation in cooperation with an assistant. This requires a lateral vision scope provided at a side face of the microscope main body. The assistant can perform the assistance for the surgical operation while observing a zoomed surgical portion by his/her naked eyes, using the lateral vision scope. A conventional lateral vision scope is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H11-244301.
A beam splitter guides into the lateral vision scope a part of beams to be guided to right and left eyes of a main operator in a stereomicroscope. Thereby, an assistant can observe a zoomed surgical portion by his/her naked eyes. The assistant can not however observe a stereoscopic zoomed surgical portion because the beam splitter guides only the part of beams into the lateral vision scope. Further, since the lateral vision scope is provided at the side face of the microscope main body, the lateral vision scope moves together with the microscope main body when the main operator tilts the microscope main body. This requires the assistant to always care about the movement of the microscope main body by the main operator.
In order to resolve the above problem, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-117049, a new device is developed to realize that a main operator and an assistant perform a surgical operation while observing a stereoscopic zoomed surgical portion simultaneously. In the new device, an optical image is converted into an electron image by a stereographic camera including an objective optical system and a zoom optical system therein. The electron image is displayed on a plurality of stereo viewers (stereo display devices) supported independent from the stereographic camera, in real-time. The main operator and the assistant simultaneously observe the stereoscopic zoomed surgical portion through the electron image displayed on these stereo viewers. According to the new device, even if the main operator tilts the stereographic camera, the assistant observes the stereoscopic zoomed surgical portion without caring about the movement of the stereographic camera by the main operator because his/her stereo viewer is supported independent from the stereographic camera.
However, since the stereographic camera includes no eyepiece optical system in the new device, the main operator can not observe the zoomed surgical portion through an optical image by his/her naked eyes. Therefore, with respect to the new device, there is a requirement that the main operator wants to observe the zoomed surgical portion through the optical image by his/her naked eyes because he/she is forced to observe the zoomed surgical portion through the electron image by an assistant's side reason.
It is hoped to develop a stereomicroscope configured to allow a main operator to observe a zoomed surgical portion through an optical image by his/her naked eyes by using an eyepiece optical system in a microscope main body and allow an assistant to observe the zoomed surgical portion through an electron image by his/her naked eyes by using a stereographic camera and a stereo viewer.
Usually, an assistant is located at a side of a main operator and an observation direction of the assistant for observing a zoomed surgical portion differs from an observation direction of the main operator for observing the zoomed surgical portion at about 90 degrees. This requires optical processing for one pair of beams which is guided to the main operator side and for another pair of beams which is guided to the assistant side and orthogonal to the one pair of beams, in a microscope main body into which a camera for assistant is built into.